Hidden NHS crisis: can government and nurses turn it around?

A new Labour government aims to target ineffective NHS management practice and implement professional standards, and will need empowered nurses to make it work

Welcome to a landmark edition of Emergency Nurse. A new government has been elected on a manifesto that promises to address the hidden crisis in the NHS and nurses delivering front-line care are ready to define what good looks like, and to be supported to deliver it.

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In the past decade those running the NHS lost sight of its values and introduced a model of meaningless data generation, promoted by private consultancy firms to depict a paradoxical world from the miserable reality patients and nurses experienced.

To impose this agenda we witnessed the proliferation of hands-off, office-based, managerial roles becoming a financial priority, while nurses pleaded for help to deliver basic care in increasingly complex situations.

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Nurses need empowerment to challenge these ineffective management practices, through periodic forums with regulators to communicate the realities of clinical practice and provide early warning systems on the emergence of toxic cultures that value micromanagement and subjective practices stifling creativity and causing confusion, fear and uncertainty for nurses.

New government promise to end workforce crisis and get NHS working for patients

The new government intends to implement professional standards and regulate NHS managers, moving away from rewarding managers that focus on personal gain and ensuring those who commit serious misconduct never do so again. This includes establishing a Royal College of Clinical Leadership to champion the voice of clinicians.

It also promises to end the workforce crisis and get the NHS back to working for patients. A key priority will be ensuring nurses feel safe at work by reducing assaults and intimidation, an example of which is highlighted in our article Using body-worn cameras in emergency departments: a pilot project.

The government also needs to acknowledge that to deliver evidence-based healthcare, nurses require access to postgraduate courses delivered as work-based learning partnerships between clinically-based educators and universities, that support specialist knowledge and skills and enable an equitable model of capability-based career progression.

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Evidence suggests these courses can empower learners to disturb the status quo of their workplace and drive qualitative patient-centred changes from within.

As the seasons change, nurses hold their breath in anticipation of a new dawn for the NHS.

Cliff Evans, consultant editor, Emergency Nurse